Editing Charles Addams (section)

==Career==
Charles Addams joined the layout department of ''[[True Detective (magazine)|True Detective]]'' magazine in 1933, where he retouched photos of corpses to remove the blood for appearance alongside magazine stories. Addams complained: "A lot of those corpses were more interesting the way they were."<ref>{{cite web | last = Marr | first = John | url = http://www.stim.com/Stim-x/8.1/detective/detective-08.1.html | title = True Detective'' R.I.P. | access-date = October 6, 2011 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110927084846/http://www.stim.com/Stim-x/8.1/detective/detective-08.1.html | archive-date = September 27, 2011 | url-status = live }}</ref>

The New Yorker Obituary of October 17, 1988, says his first drawing for ''[[The New Yorker]]'' ran in February 1932.  However, his first drawing actually appeared in the February 4, 1933, issue. Here he drew the first in the series that came to be called ''[[The Addams Family]]'' in August 6, 1938 and ran regularly until his death. Addams remained a freelancer throughout that time.<ref name="maslin" />

During [[World War II]], Addams served at the [[Kaufman Astoria Studios|Signal Corps Photographic Center]] in New York, where he made animated training films for the U.S. Army.<ref name="Kratz">{{cite web |last1=Kratz |first1=Jessie |title=Private Charles Samuel Addams: Creator of the Addams Family. |url=https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2022/10/26/private-charles-samuel-addams-creator-of-the-addams-family/ |website=Pieces of History |publisher=U.S. National Archives |access-date=17 January 2024 |date=26 October 2022}}</ref>

Addams created a 1952 mural for the bar of a [[The Hamptons|Hamptons]] hotel. It is now located in the library at [[Pennsylvania State University|Penn State]] and depicts prominent Addams Family members.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Karasik |first1=Paul |author1-link=Paul Karasik |title=Sketchbook: The Addams Family Secret: How a massive painting by Charles Addams wound up hidden away in a university library |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/the-addams-family-secret |url-access=subscription |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |publisher=Condé Nast |access-date=July 8, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708193707/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/the-addams-family-secret |archive-date=July 8, 2018 }}</ref>

Television producer David Levy approached Addams with an offer to create [[The Addams Family (1964 TV series)|''The Addams Family'' television series]], with a little help from the humorist.<ref>[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-jan-31-mn-59571-story.html "David Levy; Producer Created ''Addams Family''"], ''Los Angeles Times'', January 31, 2000</ref> Addams gave his characters names as well as qualities for actors to use in portrayals; the series ran on ABC from 1964 to 1966.<ref name="maccloskey" />

===Cartoons===
Addams regularly had cartoons in ''The New Yorker'', and he also created the syndicated single-panel comic ''Out of This World'' between 1955 and 1957. Collections of his work include ''Drawn and Quartered'' (1942) and ''Monster Rally'' (1950), the latter with a foreword by [[John O'Hara]].{{sfn|Davis|2006|p=362}} One cartoon shows two men standing in a patent attorney's office; one points a bizarre gun out the window toward the street, saying: "Death ray, fiddlesticks! Why, it doesn't even slow them up!".<ref>{{cite news |last=Williams |first=Christian |author-link=Christian Williams |date=November 17, 1982 |title=Charles Addams |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1982/11/17/charles-addams/c3eb3997-da48-4629-bb6a-84563fd91c5a/ |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=October 6, 2011}}</ref>

''Dear Dead Days'' (1959) is a scrapbook-like compendium of vintage images (and occasional pieces of text) that appealed to the author's sense of the grotesque, including Victorian woodcuts, vintage medicine-show advertisements, and a boyhood photograph of [[Francesco Lentini]], who had three legs.<ref name="Lambiek">{{cite web |last1=Knudde |first1=Kjell |title=Charles Addams |url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/a/addams_charles.htm |website=Lambiek Comicobedia |publisher=Lambiek |access-date=17 January 2024}}</ref>

Addams drew more than 1,300 cartoons over the course of his life. Beyond ''The New Yorker'' pages, his cartoons appeared in ''[[Collier's Weekly|Collier's]]'' and ''[[TV Guide]]'',<ref name="maccloskey">{{cite web|url=http://www.westfieldnj.com/addams/|last=MacCloskey|first=Ron|title=Charles Addams|publisher=WestfieldNJ.com|access-date=October 26, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080919191154/http://westfieldnj.com/addams/|archive-date=September 19, 2008|url-status=live}}</ref> as well as books, calendars, and other merchandise.

The 1957 album ''Ghost Ballads'', featuring folk songs with supernatural themes by singer-guitarist [[Dean Gitter]], was packaged with cover art by Addams depicting a haunted house.<ref name="Jason 2004">{{cite web | author=Jason | title=Scar Stuff: Dean Gitter "Ghost Ballads" (Riverside, RLP 12-636, 1957) | website=Scar Stuff | date=February 28, 2004 | url=http://scarstuff.blogspot.com/2006/04/dean-gitter-ghost-ballads-riverside.html | access-date=May 9, 2017}}</ref>

The [[Mystery Writers of America]] honored Addams with a Special [[Edgar Award]] in 1961 for his body of work. The films ''[[The Old Dark House (1963 film)|The Old Dark House]]'' (1963) and ''[[Murder by Death]]'' (1976) feature title sequences illustrated by Addams.<ref>{{cite book |last=Maxford |first=Howard |date=2019 |title=Hammer Complete: The Films, the Personnel, the Company |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lfp1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |page=8 |isbn=978-1-4766-7007-2}}</ref>

In 1946, Addams met science-fiction writer [[Ray Bradbury]] after having drawn an illustration for ''[[Mademoiselle (magazine)|Mademoiselle]]'' magazine's publication of Bradbury's short story "Homecoming", the first in a series of tales chronicling a family of Illinois [[vampire]]s named the Elliotts. The pair became friends and planned to collaborate on a book of the Elliott Family's complete history with Bradbury writing and Addams providing the illustrations, but it never materialized. Bradbury's stories about the "Elliott Family" were finally anthologized in ''[[From the Dust Returned]]'' in October 2001, with a connecting narrative and an explanation of his work with Addams, and Addams's 1946 ''Mademoiselle'' illustration used for the book's cover jacket. Although Addams's own characters were well-established by the time of their initial encounter, in a 2001 interview, Bradbury stated: "[Addams] went his way and created the Addams Family, and I went my own way and created my family in this book."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.indiebound.org/author-interviews/bradburyray |title=Ray Bradbury Interview Part 1 |publisher=IndieBound |access-date=January 7, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090203203807/http://www.indiebound.org/author-interviews/bradburyray |archive-date=February 3, 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[Janet Maslin]], in a review of an Addams biography for ''[[The New York Times]]'', wrote: "Addams's persona sounds cooked up for the benefit of feature writers&nbsp;... was at least partly a character contrived for the public eye," noting that one outré publicity photo showed the humorist wearing a suit of armor at home, "but the shelves behind him hold books about painting and antiques, as well as a novel by [[John Updike]]."<ref name="maslin">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/books/26masl.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=arts&pagewanted=print|last=Maslin|first=Janet|title=In Search of the Dark Muse of a Master of the Macabre|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=October 26, 2006|page=E9|access-date=October 26, 2006}}</ref>

Filmmaker [[Alfred Hitchcock]] was a friend of Addams, and owned two pieces of original Addams art.<ref name="timesdavis" /> Hitchcock references Addams in his 1959 film ''[[North by Northwest]]''. During the auction scene, [[Cary Grant]] discovers two of his adversaries with someone who he also thinks is against him and says: "The three of you together. Now that's a picture only Charles Addams could draw."<ref name="northwestfilm" />